Divya Mittal after thirteen years has decided that the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) is no longer where she wants to be.The 2013-batch officer of the Uttar Pradesh cadre announced her resignation in a post on X. “Today, I have voluntarily resigned from the IAS, bringing to an end an unforgettable journey of 13 years,” she wrote.To understand what she is walking away from, it helps to look at what she walked towards first.

A degree, a job in London, and a decision to come back

Mittal was born in Rewari, Haryana. She earned a Bachelor of Technology (BTech) degree from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi, then a Master of Business Administration (MBA) from the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Bangalore.After her MBA, she worked in London. By most external measures, she had already arrived. Yet something did not sit right.“Even after achieving everything, something felt incomplete. The fact that I was not in my country troubled me,” she later wrote. She credited India for her education, her confidence, and her ability to hold her head high anywhere in the world, and said she wanted to repay that debt. So she returned, and began preparing for the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) Civil Services Examination.

Two attempts, two services

Her first attempt, in 2012, qualified her for the Indian Police Service (IPS). Most candidates would have accepted the result and moved on. Mittal appeared again in 2013, cleared the examination a second time, secured all-India rank 68, and joined the IAS instead.Mittal served as district magistrate in three Uttar Pradesh districts: Sant Kabir Nagar, Mirzapur, and Deoria. She was later posted as special secretary in the state’s Revenue Department.Her time in Mirzapur drew particular attention. Under her watch, tap water reached Lahuriadah, a remote hill village in Halia block, for the first time, 75 years after Independence. It is the kind of fact that reads small in a press release and large in the life of a village.In Deoria, she was known for pushing government schemes down to the grassroots level and for taking decisions without waiting to be told twice.She described these years in her own words. “Deoria taught me that standing with what is right is not an option, but a duty,” she wrote. “Mirzapur taught me that impossible is not a fact, but just an opinion.”

The file, and the person behind it

Across her postings, working with needy families, persons with disabilities, and farmers, Mittal said she arrived at a realisation that most officers eventually do, or never do at all. Every government file has a human being attached to it.That realisation, more than the rank or the posting, appears to be what she chose to highlight as she left.

A resignation without a stated reason

Mittal has not explained why she is leaving. No scandal, no controversy, no forced exit, has been reported. What is on record is a woman who once turned down a comfortable life in London to compete for a government job, competed for it twice, and secured the one she actually wanted.Thirteen years later, she has walked away from that too. Whether this is an ending or the beginning of something else, she has not said.